Thursday, January 26, 2017

Time For The Blues - January 28, 2017

We hope you will join us this Saturday night (January 28) at 11 on Time For The Blues as Henry and I are planning to have a lot of fun with some of our musical friends and we’re hoping you will join in the fun!

Okay, I hear you say, “What friends?” Thanks Poindexter, we have made a number of friends from all our years of spinning great records. At least six anyway, and we’re going to share some with you this week.

Our first big feature for the evening will be one of the hardest working men in the business, Tinsley Ellis, whom I caught up with at a recent Richmond appearance. Ellis puts on one heck of a show and if you’ve never seen him live, do yourself a favor and catch him the next time he comes through town.

While he was here supporting his latest release, Red Clay Soul, (it’s on his own Heartfixer label) I had a chance to hang out with some good folks from the River City Blues Society and Ellis rocked the joint for a couple of hours straight. I had to get the album and couldn’t wait for it to be sent to us, so I actually ponied up a few bucks and bought not only that CD, but one of his previous releases, Midnight Blue.

When you take the opportunity to catch these great artists live, bring along some extra cash and buy what you can. If the artist autographs the CD, you’ve got yourself a wonderful souvenir of the event. Over the past few years I’ve accumulated a number of autographed CDs and I’m looking forward to collecting even more this upcoming year.

Anyway, we have several selections from Red Clay Soul and one from Midnight Blue for your listening pleasure.

Our second big feature for the night showcases one of our friends that we haven’t met yet. Oh, we talk via social media and emails, but haven’t had the opportunity yet to meet Liz Mandeville face to face. We’re looking forward to it, and hopefully it will happen soon.

Last year we received a copy of her most recent CD, The Stars Motel, and absolutely loved it! I love the idea behind it. See, a number of her blues friends were going to be in Chicago (where Liz lives) and knew she had some room at her place where they might stay for a few days.

“Sure,” says Liz. “All you have to do is co-write and record three songs with me.” So out of these collaborations comes an amazing album. We’ve got a few selections from that album, and one of her from her earlier Earwig release, Red Top. You can’t go wrong with this vivacious lady who happens to play some mean blues.

Oh sure guys, I hear you say, but what else do you have for me? We’ve got a lot of newer material as well. How about the Mike Eldred Trio from their recent release Baptist Town?

We’ve also got a fun soul blues artist named Stevie J. Blues, and are playing a selection from Back 2 Blues. With the last name of “Blues” you know he’s got to be good and just might be related to Jake and Ellwood.

Not to be outdone, we’re going to unleash an awesome group that only recently landed on my desk and right away made my Best of 2016 list, Jason Elmore & Hoodoo Witch with a cool rocking number from Champagne Velvet.

Speaking of rocking, we’ve got Vaneese Thomas with a great selection from her CD, The Long Journey Home. Thomas has a wonderful voice and a royal pedigree, her father was Rufus Thomas. Make sure you check her out.

Recently we played a selection from Reggie Wayne Morris, a fine player from Charlottesville now living in Maryland. His album Don’t Bring Me Daylight is a lot of fun and I can’t wait for you to catch this song on Saturday night.

So do what you’ve got to do in order to join us this Saturday night at 11 Eastern time when we play all this great music and maybe tell a couple of bad jokes along the way. You can find us on the radio at 88.9 FM if you’re in the Richmond area, or anywhere in the world via the internet at http://ideastations.org/.

You know where to find us, we’ll be on WCVE, where it’s always (come on, say it with us, you know you want to) Time For The Blues!